5700 - 4500 BC Early Samarra and Ubaid Cultures. Cities of Ur (Uruk) and Eridu in what is now southeastern Iraq.

4000 - 1000 BC This area, which is part of the "Fertile Crescent" that included the area around the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea and on into the Nile delta in Egypt included
Sumer (Sumeria) (map) is considered the first settled society in the world to have manifested all the features needed to qualify fully as a "civilization" 3500 BC. The first writing probably developed here.
Some of the places in the Bible were in Mesopotamia which is the region between the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers now occupied by modern Iraq. See The history of Iraq in Biblical perspective.
Rise of Babylonian rulers in the south starting around 2300 BC and Assyrian rulers in the north starting around 1900 BC.

911-612 BC Neo-Assyrian kingdom .

669 BC Babylon destroyed by the Assyrians

626 BC Babylon throws off Assyrian rule.

539 BC the Neo-Babylonian Empire fell to Cyrus the Great, king of Persia.

December 16-19 1998 -
Operation 'Desert Fox' begins: four days of US-British air strikes against Iraqi weapons programs.

Jan, 2005 - More than 8.5 million Iraqis defied threats of violence and terrorist attacks to cast their ballots January 30 in the country's first open, multiparty democratic elections in more than half a century. They elected a 275-member Transitional National Assembly (TNA). Voter turnout was slightly above 58%.